


A Fitting Reward

by entanglednow



Series: 13 Days of Halloween [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Fire-based Support Animals, Gifts, Hell Is Awful, Horror, Humor, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Skeleton Horse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27116365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: Hell sends Crowley a reward for all his hard work, which leaves him with something of a problem.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: 13 Days of Halloween [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977847
Comments: 91
Kudos: 320





	A Fitting Reward

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'Bones' prompt, for the 13 Days of Halloween list of prompts, made by racketghost.

"This may be partly my fault," Crowley admits.

Aziraphale is currently getting a very good look at what 'this' entails. He has no idea at all how the skeletal horse is even standing. Its bones don't seem to be connected in any obvious way. They're really just touching each other, as if the poor creature had been made by someone who didn't quite understand how bones worked inside a living thing. It's also possible that they'd never actually seen a horse either.

Crowley has thrown a blanket over the animal's back, and another over its long neck bones and the top of its skull. They're not helping. If anything they just draw more attention to the horse underneath. 

There's half a melted bridle dangling from its skull. He suspects Crowley had been doing his best to treat it like a normal horse. Though possibly only through determination and spite. The skeletal horse is something of a statement, it's true, an appropriately hellish steed for Hell's representative. It's also most likely going to be something of an incredible inconvenience if Crowley's actually hoping to go anywhere without drawing attention to himself.

Aziraphale's reluctant to move any closer. Its large hooves throw sparks every time it stamps the grass, and fire curls soundlessly in its eye sockets, licking around the edges and trailing its long skull before finally disappear into its mouth. Crowley had assured him that it wasn't hellfire, which couldn't hope to be contained on earth by something as insecure as a horse skeleton, and he believes him. But neither is it entirely ordinary fire, because there's an unpleasant feel to it, an infernal sort of tang to the heat of it where it seeps free. Though Aziraphale supposes you can't fill an animated horse skeleton with fire and expect things to behave normally. 

He belatedly realises that Crowley had been speaking.

"I'm sorry, how is this possibly your fault?" Aziraphale wonders. "You can't have asked for it, surely?" He knows how Crowley feels about horses. This doesn't seem like a solution to his biggest problem with them. Which had always been the falling off.

Crowley scowls at the suggestion. "No, of course I didn't. Look at it." He waves an arm to demonstrate - well, to demonstrate all of it. Which is really quite unnecessary at this point, Aziraphale has gotten a very good look. "But Hell's noticed that I wasn't - that I wasn't exactly keen on the methods of transportation they were giving me. I'm pretty sure they got it into their heads that I thought the possessed ones were beneath me. That they weren't appropriately menacing and hellish."

"Not because you kept falling off of them," Aziraphale points out.

Crowley's expression of betrayal reminds him that he wasn't supposed to bring that up.

"You promised you wouldn't mention that."

Aziraphale winces apologetically. "Right, yes, I did, terribly sorry. The skeleton horse is _very_ distracting." He feels like that has to be taken into account.

"Yes, exactly, it's distracting. What the blessed Hell am I meant to do with it? How am I meant to ride it anywhere - more to the point how am I supposed to ride it at all?" Crowley gestures towards the lumps beneath the blanket over its back. "I don't think any of them down there have ever seen a horse's spine before."

The horse's head dips to investigate the grass, which it promptly sets on fire - and then eats. Somehow.

Aziraphale tries to find something supportive to say. It's what he does when Crowley finds himself despondent about his duties, choices or the world at large. Crowley relies on him to be reassuring in the face of life's tribulations and disasters.

"Oh, I'm sure he's not so bad, if you overlook the -" He waves a hand. "The horrifying skeletal nature of him."

Crowley pulls a face, which his three-cornered hat and smoked lenses somehow seem to make even more scathing. Then he leans down and grasps the blanket thrown over the horse's back, likely to hide the wide curves of its exposed ribs. Crowley pulls the black fabric upwards in one jerk.

"Oh dear God!" Aziraphale manages. Because the horse's entire ribcage is filled with a boiling mass of fire, and inside the flames are the wailing, distorted faces of the screaming damned. They press between its ribs and claw at the pale bones, before their melted forms are dragged back into the maelstrom. The sound, though muffled, is perfectly audible all the way across the clearing. It's the most disturbing thing he's ever been forced to listen to.

Crowley lets the blanket drop and the sound abruptly cuts out.

"That's immeasurably disturbing," Aziraphale tells him.

"Yes, thank you, I had noticed." Crowley mouth pulls in, and he looks thoroughly miserable. "S'why I put the blanket on him." He reaches out and carefully unhooks the melted bridle, giving it a disgusted look before snapping it whole again. "I can't even hide him in a stable, believe me I've tried. He keeps setting fire to them. Do you have any idea how many people I've already had to convince that they never saw a flaming skeleton horse?"

Aziraphale nods in sympathy, people do tend to notice things. "I can imagine." 

Crowley attempts to loop the repaired bridle around the horses head, though this time without putting any of it in the parts which are actually expressing fire. "I'm pretty sure he can't die, and I can't exactly give him back. You don't return gifts that Hell gives you. I'm stuck with him and I don't know what to do."

Aziraphale sighs, because it's impossible to see Crowley like this and not offer help. "I'm currently occupying a house by the river. It has a large stone outbuilding that I think used to be a grain store. I suppose you could - for a little while." 

Crowley's eyebrows rise over the top of his glasses at the offer. He makes a lot of noises all at once that Aziraphale thinks would be gratitude if he was actually allowed to say any of the words.

"Angel, you'd be saving me so much trouble, I swear it won't be for long, just until I work out what to do with him. I'll owe you one."

"Probably more than one," Aziraphale decides, watching the way Crowley's skeletal steed is now dripping fire onto the grass.

Crowley nods. "Yes, absolutely, at least two." He holds the leather strap of the reins out, and Aziraphale watches them gently smoke in his gloved hand. "Do you want to lead him or should I?"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Fitting Reward](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27223924) by [Djapchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Djapchan/pseuds/Djapchan)
  * [[Fanart] A Fitting Reward (WIP)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27368494) by [SkyAsimaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyAsimaru/pseuds/SkyAsimaru)




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